What is the best way to set a particular bit in a variable in C

Question

Consider a variable unsigned int a; in C.

Now say I want to set any i\'th bit in this variable to \'1\'.

Note that the variable has some value.

Answer 1

You could use a bitwise OR:

a |= (1 << i);

Note that this does not have the same behavior as +, which will carry if there's already a 1 in the bit you're setting.